At a time when Democrats were insisting that Human Rights be a primary issue in the Salt II negotiations, Biden throws the dissidents and refuseniks under the bus, not to mention downplaying our security relationship with Europe - almost inviting the Soviets to invade.

Jan. 19, 2005 18:52 | Updated Jan. 19, 2005 19:18 More jail time for officers who call for refusal By NINA GILBERT The government is planning to stiffen the punishment for reserve officers who call on soldiers in their units to refuse to carry out orders, Justice Minister Tzippi Livni said Wednesday. The government intends to increase the maximum penalty from six months to one-year imprisonment for using rank to encourage others not to carry out a duty. The amendment to the Military Judicial Law is to be introduced as part of a bill that was approved in preliminary reading...

Papers in France, Germany and Russia - the three UN Security Council members which tried to block the war on Iraq - react in their Thursday editions to the dramatic events in Baghdad. Whilst welcoming the developments, many of them sound a warning note about Iraq's future. "Baghdad has fallen" is the front page headline in the Paris daily Le Figaro. It chooses to illustrate the story with a photo of a US soldier covering the face of a statue of the ousted Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, with an American flag. France's left-leaning Liberation says there were no regrets when...

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that an IDF officer be released from military jail despite completing only 13 days of a 35-day sentence for refusing to serve in the territories. The move came after justices Aharon Barak, Dorit Beinisch and Ayala Procaccia decided to postpone a ruling on Zonshein's appeal to stand trial before a military tribunal. First Lieutenant David Zonshein, 29, co-founder of the Courage to Refuse group, was jailed June 13 after he disobeyed a call-up notice ordering him to serve in the territories. He was given a brief disciplinary hearing by his commanding officer, without...

Observer Worldview ExtraWhy Israel's 'seruvniks' say enough is enough The laywer representing Israeli conscripts who refuse to serve beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines explains why a growing number of soldiers are disobeying orders, in order to protect the basic values on which Israel was founded. Observer WorldviewMichael SfardSunday May 19, 2002The ObserverIt is said that in the first few years of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, no one seriously thought of holding on to these territories forever. It was at the time widely assumed, that these newly conquered lands were to be handed back to...